We've built a society on bullshit and emojis.

I used to work for a company that was constantly celebrated for its incredible culture and commitment to employee well-being. They were lauded with awards like—Forbes' America's Best Employers and the Gallup Great Workplace Award. At the main campus everyone smiled. Meetings always began with small talk about football and kids. Everyone was behind the company vision and mission with gusto, sometimes so much that it brought them to tears.

It was a masterclass in workplace harmony—or at least, the appearance of it. After about a month, I started to see the cracks in this corporate nirvana. The same folks who responded to requests or ideas with “absolutely” disappeared or buried their role and responsibility. That’s when I learned a new phrase: “Texas nice.”

At first glance, it sounds charming—southern hospitality with a warm, approachable vibe. But in practice, it masked tension, suppressed disagreement, and existential fear. The real conversations happened behind closed doors, whispered in hallways, texted during meetings, or said on muted phone calls while pacing outside.

Outwardly, everyone smiled. Inwardly, it was a tire fire of passive-aggression. It felt more like a telenovela than a thriving workplace. People didn’t confront conflict—they performed around it. And that performance was rewarded.

I’ve worked in places (had the fortune I should say, weirdly) where people would straight-up tell you if they disagreed. But here, the unspoken rule was: keep it light, keep it smiling, keep it buried. If you didn’t play along, you stood out. I did. And not in a good way.

Trying to fit into that culture went against everything in me. Texas nice? More like Texas sucks. I was there to work whereas so many folks were there to keep their job. After grinding against the culture long enough, it was clear that I would never fit in so I got out of there.

That was years ago. But since then, this shallow performance culture has crept into and now dominates all of humanity and the surface has only gotten shinier—and emptier. These last ten years have made everything incredibly louder and insanely lonelier at the same time. We are all exhausted. Burnt out on work, on the world, to the point that the practice actually engaging with people is past the point of last resort.

We’ll debate (more like shout past each other) politics, or AI, or the latest New York Times headline for hours online—but we won’t send a five-word message to check on someone we claim to care about.

And no, it’s not because people are bad. It’s because we’ve over-indexed on digital performance and under-indexed on real human connection—we’re way over our skis on this problem. We’ve traded too much—too many conversations, too much nuance—for the convenience of a heart button or a one-click reaction or not responding at all.

The idea of actually talking to someone—calling them, sitting with them—is becoming foreign. Even undesirable. Calling someone now feels like a threat—too personal, too interruptive. And let’s be real, most people won’t pick up anyway. Talking to someone directly? Forget it. We’re all main characters now—treating human connection like emotional spam.

Sadly, we’ve lost the patience and stamina for real conversations. Now even trying feels like a gamble. So we ghost. We dodge. We post. We disappear behind thumbs-up emojis and pretend it counts as care. We betray our real thoughts and emotions in the name of protection, because everything is fair game for judgment or attack.

People keep asking what the hell is going on. It’s this: we forgot how to be real—with ourselves and with each other. And it’s cost us more than we realize. We didn’t get here overnight. Today’s reality is the result of actively practicing and engaging in pseudo humanity. Much of our dysfunction today was built on a gazillion-trillion-billion likes.

And now here we are, with a society built on emojis—humanity reduced to tiny images to represent emotions and private parts. We’re not heading towards dystopia, we’re eggplant emoji deep in it.

Just as I purged so much social media and platforms from my life, it’s time to cull the “friend” circle. I’ve had it with shallow surface bullshit and I’m done with meaningless, thumbs-up culture. 

If the only time you reach out is when you need something, we’re not connected. If you ghost me and come back a year later like nothing happened, we’re not friends. If you say “I love what you’re doing” but never show up to be part of it, you’re not in my corner.

If you don’t want to build real connection—fine. Just act accordingly. I see through the act.

I’m not writing this to shame anyone. I’m writing it to say something out loud that a lot of us feel but rarely voice. I need to get this off my chest, and I know I’m not the only one. Some of you have been feeling this too. You’ve just been quiet about it. So let this be your signal: You’re not crazy. You’re not alone. And you’re not wrong for wanting more.

We have to stop pretending. We have to stop performing. We have to remember how to be human—centered, connected, honest. Because if we don’t? We lose the very thing we keep claiming to want: real connection.

And if I’ve done this to you—if I’ve ducked out, ghosted, or pretended to care—may the ghost of Fred Rogers gently slap the phone out of my hand. I’ll be the first to admit I make mistakes all the time.